Guitar Newbie Needs Martin Warranty Repair: Need Advise
 

All this guitar stuff is kind of new to me. The short story is I bought a brand new Martin Sapelle Dreadnaught Junior May 2017 from Guitar Center.

Just recently the guitar is no longer playable. String #1 E touches most of all the frets, as though the neck got tweaked or warped or something. Strings 2-6 seem fine although their action is a lot less than before. I never abuse the guitar in any way, and never store it outside of normal temperatures and humidities.

I did take it to a luthier at a small local guitar shop to get an opinion, and he said that the guitar is defective from the factory. He said that it would be impossible to fix the warp and still make all strings and all frets playable. He advised me to take it back to where I bought it: Guitar Center.

At GC they wanted NOTHING to do with my issue. They behaved bothered and would rather move on to other customers. So I got a local Martin representative's name from the Martin website and will see him soon. GC refused to stand by my purchase from them.

So my question to all is, given what you know about my situation, what should I expect from Martin? I did register the guitar on Martin's site at time of purchase, and I do have the original invoice and I am the original owner, if that matters.

All thoughts, ideas, and suggestions eagerly accepted.

Not surprised at GC - they're the retailer, not the warrantor, so it is now between you and Martin.

Like any company, Martin will want to evaluate the guitar before committing to a warranty repair in order to rule out neglect or misadventure as the causes. Assuming the guitar has a factory-issued problem, as you suggest is the case, then I expect Martin will make it right for you, though there may be a shipping cost to you (apparently typical in the industry). Best of luck, but I think you'll be OK, after some bother and time.

I do warranty repairs for Martin here in Australia.

Martins Warranty is good, the endorsed repairer, will need to assess and see if environmental or owner factors have contributed to the issue at hand, if they have not, and your Guitar is in the warranty period, the repairer will send a request of for repair and Martin will either have the Guitar returned or authorise for the local repair.

If the endorsed repairer feels that environmental or owner fa tors have caused the problem then the repair is done at your expense.

Exceptions exist in all circumstances and without seeing the Guitar I cannot offer any more insight into the process for you.

Steve

Chris, Steve, thanks for the responses.

1. Go to Martin's website
2. Navigate to 'Contact Us" page
3. Pickup telephone and call them

Simple.:)

Guitar Fixed
 

Ok, the guitar is fixed. Martin would not cover the $51 charge because it was "user error". I didn't have our place humid enough, and this caused the wood to change.

The Martin certified Guitar Technician was Bob Popek of CGS Music in Lincoln, Nebraska. He hates the title "Luthier" because he does not work on Lutes. Bob knows his stuff, and while two other techs in Omaha told me the day before that my guitar was "defected during the manufacturing at the factory", and "probably needs replacement", and "your guitar is not repairable", Bob just laughed and fixed the issue in under an hour and on a Sunday no less!

Bob is professionally and formally trained as a guitar tech, and he is a Martin Certified Repairperson.

So I've learned a good deal about humidity, barometric pressure, humidifiers, and how wood can change from season to season, thanks to Bob.

The guitar performs well...the player not so much :-) LOL.

What did he do to fix it?

That is why anyone can call themselves a luthier these days. No formal training, read up and make yourself an expert vee the internet and hand a shingle outside your shed offering said read internet services.

I sent you a PM re Humidity too, for further reading

Steve

Mountain, he had to reset the neck, and dick with the truss rod (spelling?), replace the saddle too. It plays like new. He suggested a better humidifier...we had a punny one that was not effective, and it was this humidifier that gave us a false sense of security.

Steve, thanks for the info on humidity.

Your repair guy reset the neck, adjusted the truss rod, and provided a new saddle in an hour...for $51? I must have misunderstood what you meant.

Rb

If I recall correctly, the Dread. Jr. has a mortise and Tenon neck. It is very easy to reset one of those. Sounds like an excellent and reasonable repair person.

I don't want to be overly critical of a new sponsor, but, based on the report, I think that repair should have been covered by the warranty. The neck is unlikely to have twisted so much from mere humidity excess as to bias the bass strings to the fret board, as described. If humidity was the cause, then it would seem a design defect is to blame, as that degree of moisture sensitivity renders the instrument questionable for its purpose.

From the repair, it sounds like a bad neck was used and sold as good. I'd love to learn how this repair could have been necessitated by excess humidity.

Chris, you may be right. I'm too new to guitar to know for myself. However, I did appreciate the tech fixing my guitar on a Sunday, so I was too glad for that. Here's the strange thing: my wife has the same guitar and was placed in the same area as mine, and her's did not warp.

If humidity was somehow to blame, or even if it wasn't, it's a good idea to invest the $10-15 in a humidistat to keep an eye on humidity where the guitar is kept. I leave mine in their cases in a room where humidity is corrected as needed to maintain 43-58% humidity. Below 43%, I activate an "induction"-type hotplate to heat a pot of water. The induction plate is great because it's very energy efficient and I can digitally set time and temperature (eg 14 hours at 175 degrees), but can manually knock the temp down a bit as the humidity comes up. Above 58% and I turn on the room dehumidifier. All's well.

$51 for that repair work is a great deal and I'm happy that your guitar is back in action.

But, I'm a little confused about a new guitar drying out to the point of neck warpage in seven months in the Orlando area. How dry has it been down there this winter? I've been to Orlando several times and don't remember the humidity being low enough for that type of damage...Las Vegas, Phoenix sure, but Orlando? Can someone help me understand this?